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Granulation of Sound in Video Games

Granulation of sound for games is becoming a more viable tool for sound artists as the processing power of game
consoles continues to improve. Granulation is a relatively recent method of sound generation which allows for sampled
sound to be modified in real-time to allow pitch to change independently of tempo among other audio effects. It has not
been commonly used with the previous iterations of game platforms due to its relatively costly DSP overhead and
number of voices required. With the current generation of game platforms, these limitations have been relaxed
allowing for the increased possibility of real-time granulation in games. The combination of granulation and the output
of a game's physics engine is a promising relationship as the physics engine can supply the large amount of real-time
control data for the grain parameters that granulation requires. This paper investigates some current research in sound
granulation and demonstrates some effective methods of utilizing granulation for games.